Everything We Noticed During SpaceX's First Big Test of Starship Megarocket

Starship is poised to be the most revolutionary rocket ever built—a fully reusable two-stage launch vehicle that packs an absurd amount of lifting power. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk envisions Starship as the system for getting humans to Mars en masse and—more modestly—as a way to launch payloads, cargo, and passengers to Earth orbit and the Moon. SpaceX is also under contract with NASA to develop the Starship system as a lunar lander for crewed Artemis missions. For SpaceX, there was a lot riding on Thursday’s test, to say the least.

The Starship booster is powered by 33 upgraded Raptor 2 engines, the most engines ever packed into a single rocket. The previous record belongs to the Soviet Union’s N1 rocket, which managed to fire 30 engines simultaneously during a failed launch in 1969—a failure that effectively killed the catastrophically flawed project.

SpaceX, by virtue of its design decision, is treading into some seriously uncharted waters, which is nothing new for this company. An open question going into Thursday’s demo was whether the combined blast might damage the launch pad; we’re still awaiting word on this, but the pad looked reasonably okay after the test.

SpaceX had previously conducted limited hot fire tests of the Super Heavy Booster 7 prototype, including a 10-second test on November 14, 2022, in which 14 Raptor engines were set alight. For the latest test, and as before, the Starship upper stage spacecraft was not placed atop the booster.

The image above, captured by a NASASpaceflight camera, shows Booster 7 a few milliseconds prior to the engines engaging. A neat thing about this image is how clearly visible the frost is on the booster exterior. Fascinatingly, you can see that SpaceX chose to partially fill the stage with super-chilled liquid methane, as the frost line stops shortly above the half-way mark.

The hot fire demo started at around 4:14 p.m. ET and lasted for roughly 10 seconds. On Twitter, SpaceX later said the test lasted for the “full duration.” But as Musk pointed out in a subsequent tweet, the team turned off one engine prior to the mass ignition and one engine stopped itself, meaning that 31 of the 33 engines fired overall. “But still enough engines to reach orbit!” Musk exclaimed. Fair point, but in my books the test was incomplete and not a total success.

SpaceX didn’t disclose much information beyond that, but by all appearances the test did appear to go well. The stage is now potentially set for an orbital test flight at some point during the back half of March or early April. That said, SpaceX still needs to procure a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is not expected to be a problem. The video above shows the final moments of the test, as gigantic puffs of exhaust rose from the launch pad.

Even with 31 of 33 Raptor engines lit, the Starship booster earned the distinction of being the most powerful rocket ever built, albeit a rocket that has yet to take flight. A quick bit of math suggests that, which each Raptor exerting 510,000 pounds of thrust, the rocket produced 15.8 million pounds of thrust during the test. By comparison, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket currently in operation, produces 8.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. In case you’re wondering, a series of clamps and restraints—a very strong series of clamps and restraints—prevent rockets from taking off during static fire tests.

Footage from a SpaceX drone captured the hot fire test from this unique angle. It’s remarkable how close the booster is to launch pad infrastructure. During the 14-engine test in November, the ignited boosters did inflict some damage to the pad. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell said she didn’t “expect the pad to have the same issues that we had during the 14-engine static fire,” and that the company performed “some work on the pad” without specifying those changes.

This view, captured by a Lab Padre camera, shows the blast from behind the launch mount. SpaceX has spent a lot of time and money building the 469-foot-tall catch and launch tower at its Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, so damaging it yet again would’ve represented a costly setback. For Shotwell, a key goal of the pending orbital test flight “is to not blow up the launch pad,” saying “that is success.”

A NASASpaceflight camera showed the ignition blast in its early stages. A limited hot fire test of a Super Heavy Booster in July 2022 resulted in an alarming explosion directly beneath the engines, so it wasn’t a given that Thursday’s test would unfold without incident.

A SpaceX drone positioned directly above the booster captured this extraordinary view of the test. This will never grow old.

A large number of birds were disturbed by the test, as seen in the NASASpaceflight image above. The Boca Chica area is an important site for many species and is a major stopover for migratory birds.

Following an environmental review last year, the Federal Aviation Administration presented SpaceX with more than 75 environmental “actions” in order for it to proceed with site expansion and to perform launches of the Starship rocket. The FAA aside, the Sierra Club and and a local Indigenous group unsuccessfully tried to sue SpaceX over its use and treatment of the nearby beach. The view above, taken from a Lab Padre camera, shows some frightened birds during the test.

The test produced gigantic clouds of exhaust, which slowly dissipated into the Texas sky. The methane-guzzling Raptors produce some carbon dioxide and water vapor as byproducts. Recent research suggests the infusion of water vapor into the atmosphere can produce high-altitude noctilucent clouds, but the true environmental impact of Starship, particularly if launched in quantity, is not yet known.

A SpaceX drone captured this view of Booster 7 shortly after the test, with the surrounding infrastructure not appearing worse for wear. In a tweet posted yesterday after the test, Musk said he’s “congenitally optimistic” about a human presence on Mars in the very near future, saying five years from now is “possible” and 10 years “highly likely.” That humans could land on Mars in the 2030s is not entirely unrealistic; NASA itself, through its Moon-to-Mars program, is aiming for a first landing during the late 2030s or early 2040s.

Musk’s comments are still deserving of scorn, however, as the CEO still insists that Starship can ship one million colonists to Mars by 2050. That would require his company to transport an astounding number of people to the Red Planet in 17 years, assuming a first landing in 2033. Musk has outlined a strategy to that effect, but I beg to differ.